Please read chapter 10. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found
interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did
you find the least interesting? Why? Which of the applied psychologists
did you find the most interesting? What did you read in the chapter that
you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of
psychology?
Think of a topic from an earlier chapter. How does the
current chapter relate to the topic from the earlier chapter we have
already read?
What PERSON from the chapter would you like to learn more about? Why?
The first topic I found interesting from the chapter was the close up on Pavlov and his apparatus for acquiring the saliva. Originally the more efficient device for obtaining the saliva that Pavlov designed was attributed to G.F. Nicolai. This was because there was no distinction between the two designs when it was published. Later on the error would be corrected and Pavlov would be given credit for his design.
Another topic from the chapter that I found interesting was Mary Cover Jones’s systematic desensitization. This theory describes how to get rid of fears through a systematic process. She describes that fears cannot be quelled by convincing the child of their own irrationality. She also stated that fears are not helped through ridicule by peers. What she did find that worked well was combining the fear with a pleasurable experience? By bringing what a child fears progressively closer as they eat or do something they enjoy the child will begin to disassociate the irrational fear.
Also interesting to me is the way Pavlov goes about testing his conditioning on the dogs. By operating on their salivary glands he was able to determine what made the dogs do that. Every time he rang the bell before they ate the dogs salivated because they knew they were about to be fed. However, when he just rang the bell and didn’t bring out food the dogs still salivated because they were conditioned to receive a meal after the bell rang.
One of the topics I found least interesting from the chapter was the great deal of information that the book used in order to describe Pavlov’s background. This was all necessary information to the chapter to describe where the researcher came from and how he got started. It was just that all the information became a little boring to me after a little while of reading it.
Much of this chapter is useful in describing the history of psychology. This chapter lays the foundations for behaviorism as well as classical conditioning. One of the psychologists I found very interesting from this chapter and would like to learn more about would be Mary Cover Jones. I found her very interesting based on her theories about fear and how to condition it out of someone. This chapter builds on the physiological aspect of psychology talked about in earlier chapters. Without this improved knowledge of physiology and surgery Pavlov’s research could never have been done.
I did chapter 10 last week, so this week I am doing chapter 9. One thing I found interesting from chapter 9 was principles of perceptual organization. I have always been interested in these images that have multiple ways of interpretation. The principle of proximity is most interesting to me.
Another thing I found interesting was Max Wertheimer’s experiences in Germany. I thought it was interesting that he was friends with the famous Albert Einstein, later studies how he developed his theory of relativity. I also found it, not interesting, but worthy of noting; that after Hitler’s dismissal of Jewish scientists and academics that Hitler would reply with “… then we shall do without science for a few years!” It is one of the aspects of Hitler that make him such an interesting figure.
A final part of this chapter I found interesting was Lewin as a social psychologist. His experiment with different leadership types relates to my future career as an educator. Right now collaboration is seen as an important aspect in education. Collaboration is group work and knowing the results of this experiment will help me facilitate productive group work. I think it is also interesting how the groups of students would so easily switch from a democratic group to an authoritarian group. If we can do that in group work what is to stop us from doing that in regards to our government, or would we even see it coming.
For the most part I didn’t find the three co-founders of Gestalt psychology to be interesting. I think it is because I didn’t really understand what they did that was so special to psychology until I read about others who were influenced by their work. It was hard for me to relate to when they were talking about moving dot of light. I looked up what they were talking about and I understand it much better know; the needs of being a visual learner.
The applied psychologist I found to be the most interesting would be Lwin, because I could relate to some of his research, I also liked how students described him as a short man with a lot of energy. Reading this chapter has shown me why so many psychologists immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s and how Germany suffered from brain drain at this time. This is important to the history of psychology because Germany would lose its title of being an epicenter for psychology.
This chapter relates to previous chapters because it discusses Thorndike’s puzzle experiments. This chapter expands on this showing how other psychologists didn’t agree with Thorndike’s conclusions, Kohler for example.
One person I am interested in learning more about would be Kurt Kuffka because the book doesn’t focus much on him and I feel there is more to him than what the book talks about.
I actually really enjoyed this whole chapter in general! Behaviorism and its origins has always appealed to me, and I find the psychologists within the field of behaviorism and conditioning to be extremely fascinating. But more specifically, I really liked the portion on Pavlov's life and work. Although Pavlov definitely wins the award of Psychologist Most Mentioned in this textbook, this was an extreme close-up of his background in physiology and how it developed into doing research on classical conditioning. It was extremely interesting that he started not as a psychologist at all - he was studying the digestive system of dogs! This was mostly all information that I already was aware of, but it was still fun to read.
I also found the section on John B. Watson to be a good read. Specifically, the portion entitled "Studying Emotional Development" was of great interest to me. I knew Watson researched animals and Little Albert, but I was unaware that he worked on an article on basic human emotions with J. J. B. Morgan. I thought it was interesting that the three emotions that they identified in infants were fear, rage, and love, and it was fun to read about the stimulus that produced such responses in babies.
The section on Watson that was called "Popularizing Behaviorism" was also very interesting to me. Behaviorism was really a mostly unknown science before Watson spread the word and published several works on the topic. My favorite work of Watson's to read about was the Psychological Care of Infant and Child. In it, he talked about how too much affection towards an infant could be harmful in the long run - instead, he insisted, we should treat children as "young adults." His point of view was very different from most individuals today - instead of affection and sentiment, Watson was all for manners and objective treatment of your child. I doubt his would be a very popular opinion today, but it was interesting nonetheless.
There wasn't much I didn't find interesting in this chapter. It held my attention pretty much throughout the whole thing. I suppose the only thing that bothered me was that there were really only two main psychologists/researchers discussed: Pavlov and Watson. Obviously they are very important to studying the history of psychology, I just wanted a little less information on them (especially their detailed background and history) and a little more of some other psychologists instead.
I think the psychologist here which I found the most interesting would be Mary Cover Jones. More specifically, her theory on systematic desensitization was what I found the most interesting. I have always found phobias and their treatments to be very interesting, and Jones' theory tends to be one of the most common treatments for phobias used.
I thought basically the entire chapter was useful when studying psychology's history. It's very important to know about Watson and Pavlov, and how they are basically the "founding fathers" of behaviorism and conditioning. This chapter relates back to many other chapters in the book; Pavlov has been mentioned in passing many times, especially when discussing Thorndike (who was thought to be a precursor to Skinner and Pavlov) and his puzzle boxes.
The person I'd like to learn more about is Mary Cover Jones. Her theories were fascinating to me, and she was only mentioned in a paragraph or two. She would be interesting to research.
The first piece of information I found interesting from the chapter was reading about Pavlov's work outside his famous classical conditioning experiments. I had known that he was technically a physiologist, not a psychologist, but I found it interesting on his perception of psychology. He believed that restricting investigation to specific stimuli and measurable physiological responses was the only scientifically defensible strategy that he could use. He thought that the psychological approach implied dualism of mental and physical processes that Pavlov didn't accept as science.
The second piece of information I found interesting was the sections on Little Albert and other studies on infants in the attempt to condition responses from them. It previous psychology classes they have all discussed the negative effects on Little Albert later in life from the experiments, but our text doesn't mention it at all. I also found it interesting when the author suggested that Watson himself scared the child. I also thought it was very interesting when the text talked about an example when therapy was able to reduce a young boy's fear of a rabbit.
The third piece of information I found interesting was Watson's exit from academia and entrance into the business field of advertising and marketing. I thought it was particularly interesting that Watson was one of the first businessman to use demographic data to target certain consumers. I thought it was particularly impressive that within four years Watson had moved up to the vice presidency of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency which his background in psychology obviously helped him achieve.
The part of the chapter I found least interesting was the discussion of Pavlov's famous classical conditioning work because I have heard the story so many times it just seems boring now.
I found Watson more interesting than Pavlov because his work as an advertising executive seems kind of cool. Taking psychology, applying it to the selling of products, and how to convince people to buy the product has always engaged me so I found it interesting to read in the textbook about it.
I think learning about the contribution Watson made to psychology to be the most important to understanding the history of psychology because he contributed to moving psychology to a more scientific and objective basis. It also helped to bridge the gap between basic and applied psychology as well as the fact that he did effectively bring behaviorism to the center of experimental psychology.
The imageless thought controversy in which one psychologist in Wurzburg would experience imageless thoughts while another in Columbia may not demonstrated the fact that introspective data was incredibly subjective. This chapter relates to this because behaviorism pushed psychology from too subjective to a much more objective and scientific approach.
I would like to learn more about Watson's work in advertising and some actual advertisements that he produced while in the field because I think it would just be interesting to see some of his work. I think it would be interesting to compare the type of advertisements he produced compared to the advertisements produced by other people in the field with no psychology background.
First thing that i liked in this chapter was the breakdown of Pavlov and his famous experiment. I know we have heard about this thing for ages now and some people may find it boring, but I am consistently interested in whatever I can find on the topic. The background knowledge was interesting about his parents and how he joined a seminary,but i was more interested in the breakdown and diagrams of his famous salivating dog experiment. I have heard and read all about it but never actually seen a diagram that was as specific and detailed as the one on page 329 and I thought it really helped demonstrate what we were reading about.
Along with that first example I enjoyed reading about Conditioning and Extinction articles where the author described things such as unconditioned reflex and stimulus as well as the conditional stimulus and reflexes. In one of my education classes I took last year we had an entire unit dedicated to conditioning and the effect it can have on students. We were taught all about positive and negative reinforcement to go along with conditioning options and how to use them on the students, and for me it is cool to see the origins of the concept and other scientific applications.
The last thing that stood out for me was John B. Watson and more specifically his Behaviorist Manifesto. I read the passage in the book several time trying to analyze it as best i could and I am slightly ashamed to admit that i depended a lot on the books explanation to help me comprehend what exactly was being expressed. Instead of deterring me away from the topic, it made me more interested in how the book presented it and explained it. I liked the way it took the paragraph and broke it down into 4 bullet points(letters). I liked the tone the author took because he presented his information and explained why it worked as a proclamation and why he felt it necessary for his book. Watson also served as my psychologist of interest to me because of his Manifesto and its impact as the behaviorist "revolution" in psychology in America, as well as making the relation of behaviorism to real life situations.
We have talks about Pavlov and his experiment before in previous chapters, as well as Conditioning and Reinforcements. The Little Albert experiment was an enigma to me because I enjoy reading about experiments like that and it obviously had an impact on science today, but i hate to read about experimenting on a baby like that and the unfortunate impacts those actions can have on the child .
Pavlov has been talked about sometime in every psychology class. I always found it interesting that he wasn’t a psychologist, but he stumbled on the idea of classical conditioning while doing research on salivary responses. Using a dog he recorded how much saliva was released from its mouth when it was given food. In the close-up about Pavlov I was shocked by what it talked about, the mis-portrayal of his apparatus used in the experiment. The apparatus that is used in much future research is actually a “devised by a German physiological, G.F. Nicolai, who worked for a brief time in Pavlov’s laboratory” (335). He created the more basic version that Pavlov would soon develop into a more sophisticated version. The reason this confusion happened was because the diagrams were wrongly labeled in an article written by Yerkes and Morgulis. I found it very interesting why it was added, not only for an interesting fact but to warn future writers that you shouldn’t rely too much on secondary sources. “Seeing the same thing over and over again, it’s easy to assume it must be accurate” (336).
The section on Little Albert was very interesting to me. “Watson concluded that only a few stimuli would elicit the three instinctive emotions of fear, rage, and love. Then why do older children show these emotional responses to a much wider range of stimuli? His answer was simple, conditioning.” (346). He did experiments on a little boy known as Little Albert. He was introduced to a white, fluffy stimuli and a loud noise every time he would reach for it. Soon if the rat was placed in front of Little Albert he would begin to get uncomfortable. He was the only human example of classical conditioning. They also wanted to see if they feeling would transfer to another stimulus and for a length of time. “These experiments would seem to show conclusively that directly conditioned emotional responses as well as those conditioned by transfer persist, although with a certain loss in the intensity of the reaction, for a longer period than one month. Our view is that they persist and modify personality throughout life” (348). This also helped to teach people how to alleviate severe fears from people in future research which is called systematic desensitization.
The final section that I found interesting was how it was used in advertising. Watson came up with the idea that advertising campaigns should be based around fear, rage and love. “he suggested one must ‘tell him something that will tie [him] up with fear, something that will stir up a mild rage, that will call out an affectionate or love response. Or strike at a deep psychological or habit need” (351). Johnson and Johnson used this theory for their campaign for baby powder, which scared parents into using it otherwise “they risked exposing their children to serious infection” (351). Also people will believe things more if experts sell productions. Things like this are still used today to sell things.
Everything from chapter 10 about behaviorism is related to chapters 2 and 3. It specifically focuses on the how we perceive things around us. We can be conditioned to be afraid of something, like Little Albert was. I found the section on Pavlov quite boring. I’d learned a lot of it before from previous classes I’ve taken. It was also very long and hard to read. One person I would like to look more into is Watson because I find the use of psychology in marketing very interesting.
The first thing I found interesting was Watson and his fascination with animals. He didn't really click with studying the functions of humans, but felt more comfortable with animals. One of his studies with the rats and them learning how to get through the maze. To remove senses, Watson removed some of their eyes, which did not effect them learning the maze, which is actually surprising to me. The lengths of the maze also effected the rats, shorter or longer mazes, the rats remember certain pieces of the maze and when to turn so when it changes it throws them off.
I also found Watson and his emotional development of infants to be interesting because I was unaware of his infant studies, besides Little Albert. I found the Little Albert study to be interesting. Albert was sensitized to fearing a rat, which generalized to all furry things in the long run. The thing that Watson did not do, was desensitize Little Albert after the study. This now would be unethical, however we did learn about generalization to other stimuli based on a fear of one thing, from this study.
The next thing that stood out to me was the studies of how to unlearn a fear. Mary Cover Jones worked with many children who had fears of certain objects/things. Some of her methods were to just wait out the fear, hopefully it would go away, try to verbally convince the child that the fear wasn't anything to be afraid of, and another was to make fun of the child. None of these were very successful. Jones did find that systematic desnsitization did work in reducing fears. When there was a pleasurable response to a feared object, it started to change the childs perspective of it. This intrigues me because its the little things where clinical psychology starts from, using methods to help children/people get over things that bother them.
The least interesting to me was Pavlov and classical conditioning because I feel like I have learned about the dogs and all of the stimuli and responses in many classes. Its important to understand and crucial to understanding the evolution of psychology, but it gets to be a little redundant after a while.
I think it is very important to know this entire chapter. This chapter was based a lot on Pavolov and Watson and other studies that related to them somehow. So I cannot pin one thing to be more important.
In chapter 2 we talked about how to percieve things, this is what is done in behaviorism. However these psychologists/physiologists etc relate to all of the other pioneer scientists who evolved psychology and made a huge mark on the science.
I would like to learn a little bit more about Mary Cover Jones because I find her studies to be interesting and i would like to see if and what else she studied.
The first thing I found interesting in Chapter 10 was Pavlov and the Soviets during the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, and continuing with Stalin before the 1930's. I found this to be interesting because Pavlov's Nobel Peace Prize money was taken from him, but supported his experiments and work during the civil war in Russia. After Pavlov died, Soviet Union dedicated a monument in St. Petersburg, and named the Medical Institute Pavlov Institute.
The second thing I found interesting was Pavlov's experiment of Classical Conditioning. I knew that Pavlov was studying the digestive systems of dogs, so I knew this section of the chapter would be interesting. I also found that the studying of animals on behaviorism was interesting also, with the fact that ringing the bell made the dogs salivate.
The third thing I found interesting was John B. Watson's Maze studies. I found Watson's studies to be interesting because in a previous chapter we learned that Small did a maze study with rats, and Watson wanted to learn what senses the rat needed to learn the maze.
The least interesting thing was Watson in advertising. I found it to be boring, and not relevant to this chapter about psychologists studying behaviorism.
The most interesting psychologist was Mary Cover Jones. I found Mary to be the most interesting because the therapy to get over phobias with systematic desensitization reducing the fear by putting the animal at a distance while the patient ate. Even though there wasn't a lot on her studies of phobias, still found her to be the most interesting.
I think everything in this chapter is useful on knowing the history of psychology. This chapter went into depth with two psychologists Pavlov, and Watson. The classical conditioning and the studying animal behaviorism will be useful.
In previous chapters we have learned that you can perceive things from a different prospective, and more about the applied psychology with behaviorism.
I would like to learn more about Mary Cover Jones because I find her study of getting over phobias interesting, and what her life was about.
After reading chapter nine, one of the more interesting things I read was about apparent motion. I thought this was interesting because I never thought about this idea. We see apparent motion all the time in the twenty first century. Max Wertheimer liked to refer to it as the phi phenomenon. The phi phenomenon illustrates a bunch of still images that we believe are moving. They actually are not moving. It is just that the still images are being flashed so fast, our eyes and brain cannot process the information that fast so it appears to be an active motion. An example would be looking at a television screen.
The second thing that I found interesting in the chapter was perceptual organization. I thought this was interesting because when you look at a figure ground illustration you brain has a hard time seeing both images in the same picture. It was easy to focus on one of the illustrations in the figure, but to look at the other you kind of have to refocus on the whole thing.
A third thing that I found interesting in the chapter was the Von Restorff effect. She figured out that most people can recall information if it is grouped into three-digit sets. I think this is interesting because we apply this to everyday life. We use it in our phone numbers and spelling out names slowly or spelling out words slowly.
Something that I did not find as interesting as other pieces of information in this chapter was Lewin’s study on field theory. I was not as interested in it because I couldn’t really comprehend what Goodwin was trying to say. I wasn’t as engaged to the material. I didn’t understand the illustrations and how they correlated with the rest of the information.
I would have to say Edgar Rubin is the most interesting psychologist because of his work with perceptional organization. He was interested in demonstrating how figures, have several distinct features that enable them to be isolated from their backgrounds. I like looking at these figures. Also it is not just these figures that one could visualize something else using the border of the original figure. Many illustrations rise out of original figures.
Something that I read that will be most useful to me with understanding the history or psychology would be the Von Restorff effect. I think that this idea could help people realize how the brain works in relation to memory function. I think it relates to a lot of other examples in psychology. One would be how animals figure out puzzle boxes. Perhaps they only think about a certain amount of things at a time before executing their escape attempt.
One topic that was discussed in a previous chapter that relates to a topic in this chapter is imagery and association. It relates to perceptual organization. They both involve how the eye sees the things. Also they both talk about how the brain processes the information the eye gathers.
The person that I would like to learn more about is Edgar Rubin and his work with perceptual organization. I like looking at some of his examples that illustrate several pictures.
After reading chapter ten, I found multiple things to be interesting. The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter is the Watson/Carr maze studies. This study involved a rat’s ability to learn a maze. The motive for this study was to further understand a rat’s ability to learn a maze was to determine which senses need to occur in order for the rat to succeed. Interestingly, in the first study of the rat maze Watson and Carr decided to partially eliminate the rat’s ability to use its senses to complete the maze. This was done through surgical techniques such as removing the rat’s eyes, the inner ears or even the olfactory bulbs from certain groups of rats. Watson and Carr found that even though the rats had a few of their senses taken away, they could still learn the maze effectively. They both concluded that these senses were not entirely needed, and the only important factors to learning the maze were "the kinesthetic impressions coupled with certain other intra-organic impressions." The rats learned the mazes through sequenced muscle movements. Watson and Carr later found dramatic changes in the rats when shortening or lengthening the mazes. The rats ran into walls proving that these muscle movements and sequence of steps that were learned really support what they found. This was interesting because as a child I found make mazes for my hamsters.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter is another idea that was coined by Watson. Sub vocal speech according to Watson is the process of thinking to one's self. The subject of this thinking is known to Watson as "laryngeal habits." Watson argued that as children we talk out loud to ourselves, and as we grow into adults this talk eventually becomes silent. This was no way for this to really be experimented, but this silent habit that is non behavioral could be classified as a behavior. This is interesting to me because as a child I remember thinking out loud, in my early teens I remember keeping my thoughts and emotions to myself, and now in my twenties I think out loud to myself and use hand gestures. It most likely makes me look like a fool.
The third thing that I found interesting in chapter ten is Pavlov's life. It is interesting that he thought of himself as more as a physiologist rather than a psychologist. He won a Nobel Prize for his research on the physiology of digestion which stems from his various surgical procedures. One of these famous procedures is the Pavlov pouch which was an experiment on dogs. His digestion research is what really got him interested in the research of conditioning. He did this through the conditioning of dogs and figuring out why his dogs would salivate before the food even reached them. Another interesting thing about Pavlov is that the Soviets saw his conditioning as a main foundation for taking citizens and shaping them into modern communist citizens. I found Pavlov to be interesting because he is widely known and a great example for the study of conditioning.
The one thing in this chapter that I found to be not interesting is the Little Albert study. I feel that this study wasn't unethical since the baby will most likely never remember anything from it, but I also feel that it is a given that a baby will be afraid of loud noises and associate them with any object that is presented to them at the time.
The applied psychologist that I found most interesting is Mary Cover Jones and her studies of unlearning fears. Jones took note of Watsons failure to desensitize little Albert during the time of his experiment. Watson supervised the studies of Jones, and they worked with several children who had various fears. They came to conclusion that a child’s fear will not be reversed through time, or even through verbal appeal. Interestingly enough, Jones found that people, children in general, were less fearful while they were eating.
What I found in this chapter that I think will most useful in understanding the history of psychology is learning about the different research that was conducted and knowing how to relate that to our lives today. This topic relates to another chapter that we have read so far because there is the same psychologist being discussed. Watson, Pavlov and Jones have all been discussed in previous chapters, but in different context.
The person that I would like to learn more about from this chapter is Pavlov. I do not wish to learn about him from a conditioning stand point, I want to learn about his time and life during Nazi Germany. I want to know why and how they used him to shape the modern communist citizen.
The first interesting thing that I came across was the Watson/Carr maze. Those poor rats! Cutting out their eyes, ears and everything else Watson did to them. Even though I don’t think it’s the nicest thing to do he did get a good piece of information from it. What I thought was interesting is that even though the rats were missing a few parts they still got around in the maze and learned the pattern with little to no problems. He found out that the rats learned the maze by using muscles sequences. This proved that senses aren’t the only thing you need to find your way. After he finished with the maze he took the rats and put them in either a smaller or bigger maze. What he found was of no surprise. The rats did their same routine through the maze. The poor guys were running into walls, confused I’m sure. Seems like Watson didn’t have a good support system with this research, the New York Times called him a butcher and the modern day PETA definitely did not like it. I know they’re rats, but the poor guys have feelings too! The removing of the eyes is just a little much. I do find a little humor in this. Carr and Watson got this idea from Willard Small. A few years ago they made a horror movie called Willard. It was about a crazy guy that trained rats to attack people. For some reason this research made me think of that! On a different note I also thought that Pavlov’s dog saliva research was interesting.
He goes from cutting rats and putting them into a maze to filling children with fear. I’m starting to not like this guy. Baby Albert is the next on my list. I’ve heard and seen the video of this. Placing a rat in front of baby Al, he looks at it and touches it. Then, Watson makes a loud noise behind the baby frightening him. Now, every time the baby goes to touch the rat Watson makes the noise again. After a few times baby Albert starts to connect the noise and the rat and now fears the rat. Other than teaching a child fear I’m not totally sure what the point of this experiment is. What I do want to know is what happened to baby Albert in the long run. Did this event scar him for life and make him have this fear for the rest of his life or did he out grow it? I’m thinking it stuck with him.
When the book first introduced Watson it said that he was from a dysfunctional family, which brings me to my last interesting find. Popularizing Behaviorism sort of made me laugh a little. What he thinks will make a child become a behaved adult doesn’t fit my thoughts. A hand shake in the morning instead of a kiss good-bye? No hugging, you might as well get the baby a tie and suit the moments it’s born! Giving him a dozen babies does not seem like a good idea to me. Those kids will be under loved and cared for and end up in jail or on the streets if that’s the way he is going to treat them all the time. I don’t know, maybe his ideas do work and I’m bashing him for no reason, who knows. It makes me want to read his book “The Dangers of Too Much Mother Love”. This chapter was pretty interesting to say the least. I can’t really say I found Watson’s new life in advertising all that interesting.
I would have to say the Watson is interesting applied psychologist. I like Pavlov, but what Watson said just makes him more out there and interesting.
Just like Thorndike and Kohler in the previous chapters, Pavlov and Watson also did research on animals. As times change and history starts to become the present time animal research is starting to grow. Researchers want to know if animals can think like humans and perform task like us.
The person I would do more research on is Watson. Even though I’m sure I talked about him enough I would really like to get more information on this guy and his childhood.
The first thing I found most interesting about chapter 10 was how in-depth Pavlov went with his studies. All I knew previously of Pavlov was that he did "some dog study having to do with salivation and classical conditioning". Although I learned in this chapter that he actually studied different parts of the digestive system and would actually surgically change the digestive system of dogs to study.
The second thing I found most interesting about this chapter was the drawings of his laboratories. Especially figure 10.2. I have been hearing about Pavlov's classical conditioning study with the dog ever since my first psychology class in high school, but have yet to actually see anything. To see the diagram of the dog and how he had it set up, more or less, is pretty neat to see!
The third thing I found interesting about chapter 10 was when the chapter goes from talking about studying animals to humans in the sections titled, "studying emotional development". I understand that people were skeptic about all of the animal studies and that it all could possibly not be the same for humans. Although, I found it interesting that they immediately think its the best choice to start studying infants right after studying animals. This of course is a liability issue today, and I find it kind of humorous to imagine these geniuses sitting around in a meeting and saying "Well! We have studied all we can on animals, might as well move to babies! Yes. Babies seems like the next best thing."
The one thing I didn't find very interesting was the the very first section of the chapter. I didn't really get much out of it and it seemed boring. Everything else had some sort of meaning and I found it easier to stay awake.
I found John B. Watson most interesting. He was the founder of behaviorism for one, and studied many great things that we still study today. I found in chapter 7, the Carr Maze studies to be very interesting and I have learned that Watson was a part of that. He did many great things in the world of psychology.
I find it difficult to find one single thing the MOST useful in understanding the history of psychology in this chapter when the whole chapter seems to be extremely important. Learning all about Pavlov and his classical conditioning would have to be one of them. It is a well known study that literally can be observed on a daily basis, in your own life.
I mentioned earlier, but the Carr Mazes were brought up from a different chapter again. This time bringing Watson and behaviorism into the picture. This is a topic obviously related to past topics.
As I mentioned before, I find Watson very interesting. I would like to learn more about him. I already know what only my intro. to psych. class taught me and I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot more interesting things about him.
The main characters from this chapter, Pavlov and Watson, were people that I had heard extensively about, but this book provided new information to me. Therefore, this was a very interesting chapter for me. One thing that was appealing was Pavlov’s work on digestion. Of course we know him as the guy who did the saliva experiments with the dogs, but he won a Nobel Prize for his work on digestion. That’s got to account for something, right? There seems to be a pattern throughout this book where a particular person is known for their work on something in the psychological realm, but they would rather be considered a different type of scholar, such as a philosopher or physiologist. Even though we know Pavlov for his psychology experiments, he would rather be considered a physiologist. It’s just something interesting I’ve noticed that the author mentions repeatedly about many of the people discussed in this book.
Another thing that caught my attention was Pavlov’s relationship to the Soviets. I thought it was funny how he was so against the Soviet revolution in the beginning, but as soon as he was receiving money from them, he was celebrating the cause. The Soviets were obviously getting something out of Pavlov’s research as well because they would want to condition people to follow their ideals. I liked that the Soviets treated Pavlov “like a war hero” after he died despite the fact that he was a skeptic in the beginning.
I thought Watson’s experiment on Little Albert was interesting, especially learning about all of the flaws it contained. It is such a famous experiment that is taught in psychology classes everywhere, but yet it is basically an inconclusive study of conditioning.
One thing I did not find too interesting was the discussion of Pavlov’s early life. I haven’t been too intrigued by most of the biographies given in the book so far, and this one wasn’t any different. I like to get to the theories and controversy stuff, and the beginning information is just an extra couple of pages to read in my opinion.
I think that Watson was a very interesting person to read about in the chapter. The way that the author portrayed Watson made him seem like a shady character as well, pointing out his first wife being an undergraduate student under him and cheating on her with a graduate student. I think I would like to know more about his life and his controversial relationships with his students.
I think learning about conditioning and extinction are important terms in the history of psychology because these terms are used over and over again in numerous experiments studying conditioning throughout history. Knowing what the unconditioned stimulus and reflex are and the conditioned stimulus and reflex are is a very helpful tool in understanding what a particular experiment is observing.
This chapter talked a lot about researching objective concepts and not using introspection, just like the British empiricists argued in chapter 2. If psychology is going to be a real science, there needs to be data that can be repeated by different psychologist with the same results found. Only objective data can do that, and that data must be collected using observation outside one’s self.
Three things I found interesting in chapter ten was the section about Pavlov’s life and work, the section on his noble piece price for his research and development regarding the digestive system. I also found the section in the chapter on Pavlov’s conditioning and how the soviets thought that they could use this as a foundation for creating the model communist citizen. The third thing I found interesting was on B.F skinner and that he had a tendency to argue with his teachers, and that he later when on to get advanced degrees in psychology. I also found it interesting that he wanted to be a writer.
The one thing in the chapter I found the least interesting was the section on John B. Watson and the founding of behaviorism this section focused a lot on his life. This section also talked about how Watson displayed some behavior that was not quite acceptable in school about being arrested twice. I did not find this section very interesting or his interest in working with animals.
The applied psychologist that I found the most interesting was B.F. Skinner, I thought it was very interesting that he misbehaved and argued a lot as a child, but that he was very intelligent. I liked the fact that he left college and tried his chances at writing. I also find the work he did in psychology to be interesting. It is also interesting that even at his old age and illness, he still gave an intriguing and in depth speech about psychology being a science of the mind. His passion and drive for his discipline is inspiring.
I think the sections I will find the most useful in understanding the history of psychology will probably be the sections on Pavlov. It often seems just like in the case regarding the soviets, that when a new development in psychology is discovered that the general public can assume that his can be put into practice to train correct or make model human beings using a specific method. While this may be true in education this section was interesting to see how society funds research for benefits like the soviet example using Pavlov’s research.
The behaviorist’s in this chapter and there research I feel continues to build on the accomplishments of past psychologist in previous chapters and continues to review and build on previous research and discoveries. Each chapter adds another layer to the history of psychology helping to complete the overall picture.
One person from the chapter I would like to learn more about is Pavlov, specifically his work for the soviet union and how they incorporated his research into training model soviet citizens.
I’m somewhat of a feminist, so the first person I found interesting was Mary Cover Jones. Her theory of systematic desensitization was also very interesting. In my Abnormal Psychology class we are discussing phobias and one of the treatments for phobias is systematic desensitization – the process of gradually exposing one to something bad with something good in order for them to become immune, or desensitized.
The next thing I enjoyed reading about was the different leadership styles Lewin discovered as a social psychologist. I’ve considered taking my psychology degree along with a future masters and going into counseling at a school, so it was fun to read about his work with education. It’s important to know diversity in these settings in order to accommodate all of students’ needs.
In my last Tuesday blog I discussed how I wanted to learn more about Watson and this chapter definitely did not disappoint! I’m extremely interested in emotions being a complete drama queen, so I love reading about the psychology of emotions. Watson’s research intrigued me and we also have discussed some of his theories in my other classes, like my Developmental Psychology course. With that being said, I don’t know how much I agree with some of his developmental theories, like when he discussed having a more firm hand with infants.
Everyone knows who Pavlov is and they all know about his saliva conditioning. Everyone. So to hear it AGAIN as a pscyh student was very boring. I feel like I skimmed that portion of the chapter and still retained everything.
Watson and Lewin have both been discussed in previous chapters. I like this though. Repetition is good when it isn’t identical information. This also shows how important their contributions were, especially Watson, to the science of psychology. Their first studies paved the way for so much more research work by so many other psychologists. Their work is extremely important to the history of psychology.
One of the things I found interesting about chapter ten was the section that talked about Pavlov’s life and work. I was informed right away that Pavlov was a physiologist not a psychologist and in fact he had little regard towards those who did refer to themselves as psychologists. I thought that it was interesting that he won the Noble Prize but had little to say about the work that had led him to get to that point. Pavlov was more interested in inventing and perfecting a number of surgical techniques that would later assist him in his research. I also liked that the reason Pavlov became interested in science was by discovering Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” which helped me relate the past information to the new information I was being presented with. Another psychologist we have read about is Thorndike who Pavlov credited for doing the first systematic work on the relationship between “visual and tactile stimuli on the one hand and the locomotor apparatus on the other.” Both of these psychologists are well known and it’s always interesting to hear about who people are inspired by, it helps us have a better understanding of that person and their beliefs.
The second thing I found to be fascinating was Pavlov dealing with the Soviets. Pavlov explained to the Soviets that scientists must be systematic, modest, and passionate about their work, and that “science demands of a man his whole life. And even if you could have two lifes, they would not be sufficient. Science calls for tremendous effort and great passion.” Pavlov was overall not impressed with the Soviets; who eventually confiscated his Noble Prize money. After many problems, Pavlov requested permission to emigrate and was denied. However, by the end of his life, Pavlov had adjusted to the reality of the Soviet Union. His mind changed due to the developing threat of the Nazis in Germany. When Pavlov really sat down and thought about it, it appeared to him that the Soviets were “much the lesser of two evils.” We are also presented with the reasoning of why the Soviets would not want to lose Pavlov, but instead wanted to build off of his research. They noticed a major theme of his research being that behavior could be changed by controlling the environment, actions could then be “conditioned.” This alone kept Pavlov from emigrating.
The third thing I found interesting was the life of John B. Watson. The first thing that was mentioned about Watson is that he is often referred to as the founder of the American school of thought that came to be known as behaviorism. I was shocked to read about Watson’s family. To read about his father being a drunk and his mother being religious was something we have, at this point, not heard of until now. The book wasn’t lying when it said that his family would now be considered as dysfunctional, because it was. A lot of times, psychologists are presented to us that come from a wealthy background or appear to have fairly “normal” family members. Then to read about Watson’s mother wanting him to become a minister to Watson having behavior problems and being arrested at least twice was mind boggling. However, I agree that it was understandable that Watson was a troublemaker because by looking at his background, people expect just that. But then, Watson turned his life around and is now a very well-known psychologists who, I feel, is very inspirational because no matter what had happened before or the circumstances with his family, he still managed to make something of himself. I think that alone says a lot and proves to every individual, it doesn’t matter where you have come from, you can still manage to become someone.
I would have to say that there were actually a few parts of this chapter where I lost interest. One section in particular was the one dealing with Watson and his “New Life in Advertising.” I feel as if the author could have just briefly mentioned this wrapping up Watson’s life, but to devote a whole section to it I thought was a little unnecessary. I think in some ways it took away from the whole direction of this chapter and just threw me off. One minute we’re talking about Little Albert and then all of the sudden we’re talking about Watson being a young bachelor to leaving his wife to turning to advertising. I found it completely off topic and think it could have just been eliminated.
There were many things brought to our attention that are important to know in understanding the history of psychology. To pick one single topic would be impossible. The work of Pavlov and his salivating dogs is discussed in, my experience, every psychology course. Also, Watson and his work with Little Albert is another one we tend to run into in our psychology courses. I feel that all of the studies that were presented are important to know in order to understand the history of psychology because it is a structure to the psychology field that we continue to build on. I have really just enjoyed being able to see the progression that psychology continues to make the more we read through this book and it is crazy to think that there is still so much work to be done.
This chapter relates to other chapters because the field of psychology is continuing to build. We see how psychologists have been inspired by previous psychologists to join the field and make contributions. Throughout this chapter, Darwin, Thorndike, and Carr (to name a few) were brought up. The role these individuals played in a psychologist’s life was either direct or indirect. The studies continue to develop and discover new answers as well as form new questions. Also, the work done with animals seems to be growing and benefiting the field of psychology.
I would have to say the applied psychologists that I found to be the most interesting was John B. Watson and I would actually like to do more research on him as well. I would like to take a look at his work and at Mary Jones, who was briefly mentioned in this section. By looking up more information, I would get a better idea of how each ran their experiments and overall just have a better understanding of the backgrounds.
One thing that I found interesting from this section was Pavlov’s research on neurosis. Pavlov is famous for his work with the salivating dogs when he wrung the bell, but his other research has not been given in my other psychology courses. This research relates to this chapter because Pavlov’s work with dogs contributed to behavioral psychology. This research used projections of circles and ellipses and paired the circle with food to see if the dogs would be able to differentiate between the two shapes through classical conditioning. The dogs were able to differentiate, but as this deteriorated they began to experience neurosis which manifested in different ways such as barking violently. This is interesting additional research than the famous study that Pavlov is known for. I found this interesting, because it is something that I have not learned about, and it increased my knowledge of Pavlov.
Another thing that I found interesting was Watson’s Little Albert experiment. I have learned about this experiment before, but it is so interesting that Watson was able to get away with this, when clearly today it would be considered unethical. This fits into the chapter, because it was looking at behavior through classical conditioning. In this study Watson took 9 month old Albert and gave him a rabbit to pet, but when he touched it they struck a metal bar with a hammer causing a loud and frightening noise for Albert. Next Watson brought in a rat and paired the same loud noise with the stimulus. Eventually, just the sight of the rat or rabbit caused Albert to burst into tears. Albert had been classically conditioned and not feared something that he had not originally feared. This study is famous, but does not go without criticism. Conclusive evidence and generalizations cannot be made from a study with just one person, but this study cannot be repeated for ethical reasons. It is also unclear if Albert was afraid of the rabbit to begin with. Regardless, this research is viewed as important to the field of psychology even today, and it is still taught in most introductory level psychology courses.
The last thing that I found interesting was Watson and Carr’s maze studies. They tested to see if rats could still learn the maze with different handicaps on them, such as blinding them, removing their whiskers, putting anesthesia in their feet, and surprisingly they could still learn the maze. The second study they did was to give rats a full maze and have them learn that, and then shorten the maze and see if they could do this. This resulted in the mice running into the walls, and when the maze was returned to normal size the mice began to turn at the wrong places. These studies were highly criticized because the public viewed them as being cruel to the rats, but I found the first one interesting because I was surprised the mice could still learn the maze even with these handicaps. The second one I found more amusing because of the rats running into the wall, and even one at full speed. This relates to this section of reading because it involves the behavior of the rats.
A section that I did not find interesting is when the book discussed the UCS, UCR, and so on, I understand that these are important to this field of psychology, but it is something has been taught a lot of times, so the redundancy didn’t interest me. I found Watson to be the most interesting because he was criticized for his work, but he still continued to research, and is still talked about in psychology today. I think the information about classical conditioning is most important to learn, because it is a big part of psychology, so it is interesting to see where it came from. This relates to earlier chapters, because a lot of the research is done on animals which are a lot like Kohler’s work. They both took their animal research and applied it to humans. I would like to learn more about Watson, because I found his research to be really interesting.
I found the work of Ivan Pavlov to be very interesting. First off it is amazing to me that he had such a great impact on psychology and he did not consider himself to be a psychologist. In classes like intro to psychology and a few other classes this misconception is not even cleared up. You hear that Pavlov was one of the most important psychologist but you never learn that the man earned a Nobel prize for something he did in physiology!
I of course must say that I found the experiment done with little Albert to be interesting. Although I feel that this may be considered a cruel thing to do to a baby, it is cool to see how individuals can be conditioned to fear things. One thing that sticks out to me about this experiment is that the researchers never took the time to desensitize little Albert. In one of my classes my professor joked that child was deathly afraid of white rats its entire life. Reading about this in the chapter reminded me of this and, I wonder if it is true or not
The third thing that I found interesting was the concepts of Generalization and differentiation. These concepts were covered by Pavlov and I think that they show just how in depth he went in his research. Having an understanding on whether or not a subject is generalizing or differentiating would be able to further the research that Pavlov did. It would make him able to see just how far conditioning could really go.
What I found to be uninteresting was Watson’s Presidential APA address. I found it boring because it was basically saying that he called out introspection but he could not find anything better to do than introspection. It was boring to me because I knew that eventually he would find a way to study behavior and apply what he learned from these studies.
John Watson was the most interesting psychologist in my opinion. Watson wore many hats throughout his career and it seemed as if he was always pretty successful. I found his work that he did with Johnson and Johnson to be the most interesting. Also, I found interesting that he studied behavior and knew a lot of things about people’s actions, but he could not keep himself from making advances at another woman while he was married.
In understanding the history of psychology it is essential to know about behaviorism and, how it came about. I think that the work done by both Watson and Pavlov are staples to psychology and that they are definitely a must know.
Empiricism and associationism are topics from earlier in the chapter that relate really well to this chapter on behaviorism. Since both of these things focus on experience they encourage the observation of people and the way that they behave. Another thing from past chapters that applies to the emergence of behaviorism is that researcher wanted to get away from introspection. Studying observable behavior was a great way to get away from having to draw conclusions that may not necessarily be correct.
The person from the chapter that I would like to learn more about is Rosalie Rayner. I am sure she had a lot of publicity in her time seeing as to how she was the woman that Watson left his wife for. I would like to learn whether other not others in the field treated her any different because of this situation. In a lot of affairs I think the unmarried person is blamed more than the married one. Also I want to find out about some of the other things she researched during her time in the field.
For Chapter 10, so much of the material is familiar to me because we’re getting into the more commonly taught aspects of my prior psychology courses. Behaviorism is, understandably, big news.
The first thing I learned was that the drawings of Pavlov’s machine change depending which source it’s from. Apparently, a more complicated but incorrect version of his machine was published in secondary sources and duplicated time and again to the point that most people mistakenly thought it MUST have been correct.
Another fascinating item is always the Little Albert study. Watson conditioned Albert to fear the rat using loud noises, then transferred the response to other stimuli. The part that really annoyed me was that he assumed the fear would subside with time rather than take steps to lessen the fear through techniques such as systematic desensitization.
The other Watson related item I found interesting (aside from his highly publicized divorce and forced resignation from Johns Hopkins) was his book, Psychological Care of Infant and Child. In it, he claimed that a child could be “spoiled by bad handling” and that there would be “serious rocks ahead for the over-kissed child.” He felt a child should not be held or kissed, except perhaps on the forehead before bed. He said a parent should greet his or her child with a handshake in the morning.
Obviously, I found Watson to be most interesting, and I’d like to learn more about him. I liked reading about his use of the three fundamental emotions of fear, rage and love for advertising purposes. I think a lot of that has observational truth to it.
Probably the most useful tidbit came from Watson as well. His experiments with Little Albert exemplified how little time and energy was expended overcoming ethical issues like creating fear in another human and then abandoning them to that fear. Things have been changing up to this point in the history of psychology, but they obviously haven’t reached an incredibly introspective point where ethical considerations are examined.
As far as previous materials and chapters go, the animal studies again are used to explain human behaviors. Pavlov’s dogs might be similar to the island apes used previously.
One of the first things that interested me in chapter ten was Pavlov. His work has always interested me and I enjoyed getting a refresher on conditioning and extinction. I am always intrigued with the way he found out how the dogs started salivating at the bell before they even saw the food, but I really think its cool that he came about something like this when he was actually studying digestion. What an amazing thing to “fall upon.” Extinction is something I am always interested in reading more about too because these behavior modification techniques are something I use at home with my daughter and at work with the teens I work with almost every day.
One of the things I learned about Pavlov in this chapter that I didn’t know before was that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. I also found it interesting that after his death, the Soviets treated him like a war hero. There was a monument built of him and with Medical Institute was renamed the Pavlov Institute. They even preserved his brain, wow, these are all things I didn’t know before reading this chapter and found this very interesting
I also enjoyed reading about the rat maze studies that were done by Watson and Carr. In order for them to systematically eliminate the senses of the rats they had to surgically remove their eyes, ears and olfactory bulbs. It was pretty amazing to learn that deprived of these senses the rats still learned the maze. The animals were learning to associate sequences of muscle movements with the various turns in the maze. After changing the length of the mazes, some of these hypothesis were excluded but the ways in which they found this out is what is interesting to me.
There really wasn’t a whole lot that wasn’t interesting to me in this chapter, just that a lot of it I have read and learned before. Most of which was in B Mod.
I think I would have to say that Pavlov was most interesting but I also always enjoy reading about Watson and the studies of Little Albert. I would also have to say Watson because of his Psychological background and his advertising background because my fiancé in advertising and marketing and I am in Psychology;)
Knowing about both of these guys is extremely important in knowing the history of psychology. I am always ready to learn more about these men.
The first thing from this chapter that I found interesting was in the section of Working in Pavlov’s Laboratory. I found it really interesting that Pavlov would raise money by selling dog gastric juices. I think that I found this fact interesting for the simple fact that it seems really bizarre. It was also surprising to me that people would buy these juices as an elixir for digestive issues.
The Watson/Car Maze studies were another aspect of chapter 10 that I found interesting. In order to determine what senses were needed for rats to learn the mazes, they actually eliminated their senses! For example, he cut out eyes and middles of ears! I found this interesting because we rarely hear of this type of animal treatment in experiments, yet it was a regular occurrence for earlier researchers.
A third thing that I found interesting in this chapter was regarding “Little Albert.” This study has been discussed in many of my classes, such as Dynamics of Human Development. I found it interesting to learn more details about this study. I am really interested in human emotions so the fact that Watson and Rayner attempted to condition human emotions made for an interesting read. An interesting side point that I had not previously known about is also that the study was published the same year that Watson was fired from Johns Hopkins.
I found Pavlov’s classical conditioning research involving the dogs to be slightly uninteresting. I think I lost interest throughout this section because this research is so widely discussed in nearly all psychology courses I have taken during my college career. Even if the study is not discussed in detail in the class, it is still mentioned.
I found Watson to be the most interesting applied psychologist. I enjoyed reading about him because of his work, and my interest in human emotions. Watson is also the person in this chapter that I would like to learn more about. I would like to learn more about him because of his studies in an area of my interest.
In my opinion, I think that the entirety of this chapter is important in understanding the history of psychology. As stated earlier, throughout my college career, Pavlov and Watson have both been mentioned various times. I feel that understanding these individuals and their contributions is important to understanding the field of psychology.
This chapter relates to previous chapters by the content mentioned. For example, in many chapters we have discussed how to apply psychological theories to real world events, such as how Pavlov applied the theory of psychological conditioning to dogs. Another way it relates is by chapter 3’s discussion of vision and audition and the work that Watson/Carr did on rat mazes, by eliminating those senses.
I was interested in the Watson/Carr maze studies, which showed marked methodological improvement over contemporary scholarship (Small letting the rats sleep in the maze, for example). I also liked reading about Watson's behaviorist manifesto, which to me exemplifies the attitude of the prototypical scientist; even though Watson was later found to be wrong, he struck out to take psychology in an ultimately progressive direction: away from introspection. Third, I enjoyed learning a bit about Watson's upbringing. He is a really interesting character (definitely the most interesting in this chapter), and it's neat to see how he was shaped, even though his story is a bit sad.
I found the original source excerpt about Little Albert to be the least interesting part of the chapter for me, because I've heard the story before in Intro to Psych and Behavior Modification.
I think in terms of understanding the history of psychology, taking a historicist as opposed to presentist perspective about the development of behaviorism will help me the most. It is very easy to think of the Behaviorist Manifesto as some kind of very controversial milestone in psychology's history, because it became that later. The fact is, it garnered little attention at the time.
One topic from an earlier chapter that relates here is ablation, which we discussed in chapter 3. Watson and Carr used ablation techniques to see how well rats could navigate a maze without one or another sensory organ. I thought this was really cool (and kind of morbid).
I would like to learn more about Watson, because he was a founding father of one of the most influential and interesting paradigms in psychology.
I thought Watson’s father sounded the most interesting so far. I’d like to party with that dude.
And James Mark Baldwin, too. He apparently understood the importance of field research. I’d like to learn whether he ever analyzed the ‘stimulus/response’ of his own behavior.
I also thought it was interesting that Watson was so well embraced --both by the psychological community and by the general public-- when many of his assertions had so little merit.
On the other hand, Watson’s own indiscretion wasn’t very interesting at all. It was downright quaint in comparison.
I do find it ironic, however, that Watson said “once a child’s character has been spoiled by bad handling which can be done in a few days, who can say that the damage is ever repaired” - in light of his ‘bad handling’ of Little Albert.
I thought Goodwin’s apologetics at the end of the chapter were disingenuous. He devoted 90% of the chapter to Pavlov and Watson, then gave a half-hearted argument in support of Boring’s assertion that we shouldn’t attribute too much to individuals.
The shift from introspection to observation (of behavior) is the one thing from the chapter that will help me to understand the history of psychology.
I think that there have been several individuals (e.g., Titchener, Goddard) from previous chapters who demonstrate the same grandiosity and blind eye to their own research flaws as Watson.
38 minutes until SaWah’s apple crisp is ready. . .so here we go. In chapter 10 of our textbook, I found Watson 3 basic emotions interesting. 1. Fear 2. Rage 3. Love. These are 3 topics I found interesting because when trying to relate to other in human service, I would like to study these individually to relate to individuals served. This is why I find these 3 things interesting. I was not interested in John Watson’s extra marital activities.
I was interested in Mary Cover Jones and would like to learn more on unlearning of fears. I think the bit on replication will be most useful in study of psychology.
We studied British emperialism in earlier chapters and we are able to see similarities between emperialism and 20th century behavior in this chapter. I would like to learn more about Mary Cover Jones and her studies. Thanks!!
There were a few things that stuck out to me in Chapter 10. Our textbook states that in an address delivered at the 1904 World's Fair, James McKeen Cattell declared that psychology should not be limited to the study of consious experience and that introspection need not be the dominant method used by psychologists. it was easy to read over this sentence quickly and move on Pavlov's dogs. But something told me to stop and reread the above material. The first part of this sentence is what stuck out to me. I realize that there was a time when our subconsious may have been a bizarre term to people, but again, our book says that this speech was given in 1904. That doesn't seem like that long ago. Because I was surprised by the year that Cattell addressed the St. Louis World's Fair, I was also surprised by the fact that it was also in 1904 that Pavlov earned the Noble Prize for his experiments with digestion. I don't like to memorize dates and years and call it history, but I am trying to remind myself to put some of these timeframes into prespective. I also liked the section of this chapter that referred to these so-called "imageless thoughts." This intrigued me because its something that I often think about. Do our thoughts only stay true to one language? Do dogs think in bark?
While reading chapter ten I found MANY things interesting!! This is because it related so much to behavior modification. I have already taken B-mod with professor Otto and enjoyed it on so many levels. This chapter had been excited and overjoyed on many levels.
For starters I really enjoyed Pavlov with his experiments with conditioned and unconditioned responses and stimulus. His research also involved extinction. I enjoyed readings information that I have read many times over and over again. Sometimes it seems like every book has a different interpretation of the classical conditioning research! I enjoyed reading this because it was a mind refresher. Pavlov was able to have a dog salivate when a bell was rang. This is because the dog knew that when the bell was rang, it was going to be receiving some sort of food. I found it interesting how extinction can occur as well. When the bell gets rang over and over again and there is not any food, extinction occurs. From there you have to re-work the brain in order gain conditioned response and conditioned stimulus. I felt that Pavlov was a key researcher but when introduced to American researchers, I felt that it was pushed away and very unfamiliar.
Next I found Watson to be very interesting, due to the Little Albert Study. This study showed that one can instill fear in children. This study was where Albert was given a rat and then we would reach out to touch it or pick it up, a loud smack would happen. This continued to happen , the studied never finished and so what happen to Little Albert after the study is unsure. This connected with Pavlov and the unconditioned and conditioned responses. I found this study to be very interesting, which also made me think about the bed that Watson patented. This crib was made to regulated temperature. This way the baby was able to maintain a regular and stable body temperature without having blankets on the child.
Next I loved Mary Cover Jones. She was able to research something called systematic desensitization. She was able to determine what a child’s fear was and eliminate their fear. This was done by slowly bringing the fear into reality. This make be things about a video that we watched in a class. It was about a girl that was afraid of her mother dying and never allowed her to get her blood drawn. They brought the daughter to the doctor with the mom and had her in the room while she got her blood drawn. Here her fear came to justice, where she was able to see that her mother was not going to die. I however thought that it was very sad that Little Albert was not able to receive her treatment, like Peter did. Many of Watson’s test subjects never were able to be desensitized. Mary Cover did her study on a two year old named Peter!!! His fear was with many things that were white.
There was not any part of the chapter that I did not enjoy, due to how helpful and informal this chapter was.
I would like to know more about the crib that Watson made and how effective it truly was!!!